Top university budget officials will teach fall class on U-M finances

By Rick Fitzgerald
Public Affairs

The architects of the university's general fund budget will teach a one-credit class in the fall designed to demystify U-M finances for students.

Phil Hanlon, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, and Martha Pollack, vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs, will teach the LSA course titled College Affordability: Financing the University. The mini-course will be offered the first seven weeks of the fall semester.

"Every student is concerned about rising college costs and so are we," says Hanlon the university's chief academic and budget officer. "We want to help students understand where university funding comes from, how it's spent and how the university strives to control costs while maintaining quality."

The class is an outgrowth of several presentations Hanlon and Pollack offered this spring, and which were well received by students.

Pollack says she and Hanlon will use the U-M budget as a case study for the class to provide a detailed look at university finances.

"One of our goals as a public university is to prepare students to be well-informed citizens. We hope that this course will contribute to that goal, by exposing students to the complexities of financing large public institutions like universities," Pollack says.

The class will meet from 6-8 p.m Tuesdays at North Quad. Registration is under way.